Black Hole: A Graphic Novel

by Charles Burns

Book Overview

"The best graphic novel of the year" (Time) tells the story of a strange plague devastating the lives of teenagers in mid-1970s suburban Seattle, revealing the horrifying nature of high school alienation--the savagery, the cruelty, the relentless anxiety, and the ennui.

We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area's teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease is manifested in any number...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 037542380X
• ISBN13: 9780375423802
• Release Date: October 2005
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 2.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.9" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

Brilliant

Charles Burns has done something really special and unique in the comic book world. Having taken over a decade to complete in single issue form, Burns' Black Hole is a sight to behold. Taking place in the teenage drug culture of Seattle in the early 70's, Black Hole revolves around a group of teenagers all effected in some way or another by a sexually transmitted disease called "the bug". Unlike other STD's, the effects of "the bug" can be noticeable to the ungodly hideous and deforming, or can be subtle and easily hidden, like a small mouth on your neck or a tail growing on your backside. And once you get it, that's it, there's no coming back. The AIDS metaphor is used to full effect here, but it's Burns' stark black and white artwork that is the main attraction of Black Hole, as it is both horrifying and understated at the same time. The tragic storyline and bleak conclusion won't put a smile on anyone's face, that's for sure, but this is a must read nevertheless. All in all, if Black Hole doesn't prove to you that there is more to comics than spandex, muscles, and busty babes; than nothing ever will.

Incredible

Black Hole is head and shoulders the best graphic novel I have ever read. The story is based around a group of teens in suburban Seattle who are ravaged with a disfiguring STD. It drives most of them from their homes into hiding, and no one in the book ever reemerges into the "normal" world. I heard good reviews of the book but was skeptical when I picked it up, fearing that I wouldn't be able to identify with such a fantastic storyline. I was absolutely wrong: what struck me first about Black Hole is that the disease's physical effects are not at all the focus. They merely serve as a backdrop for a gripping portrayal of teenage life. Anyone who reads the book will be able to identify with the desperate need for belonging that causes us to make the most irrational decisions. One of the interesting aspects of the book is the vast differences in symptoms from one individual to another. Some merely grow bumps on their chests, while others develop exoskeletons. Equally absorbing is the fact that the infected teenagers who fare the best in the story are those whose particular symptoms are not as visible. Whether Burns intends it or not, there is a tacit hierarchy among the diseased that I found fascinating. Just like in any other form of prejudice, the closer kids appear to the "ideal" - in this case being non-diseased - the better they fare and the more they are accepted. Finally, the novel's graphics are simply amazing. Burns' artwork is almost overwhelming in its intensity and frequently in its detail. Despite the plot of the novel pushing me to read faster, I couldn't help but slow down and take my time looking at each page. Every pane is dark and often horrific, but each is tremendously beautiful. Just like the story.

Eueww! It touched me with its second mouth...

Outstanding! Absolutely the best graphic horror novel ever written, and brought together in one book that I literally finished in only a few hours. Then I had to go back, and peer once again at the wonderfully twisted graphic cells. Forget herpes and AIDS, this story is about a $exually transmitted disease that is sweeping through the teen population in Seattle WA during the 70's. Sure, it may be fatal, but when teenagers are so concerned about looks and cliques and fitting in, this little bug reaches into the core of their self esteem and strips it by making them become...freaks. Every reaction is different, from second mouths to boils to skin peels to total disfigurement. In an era of heavy greenery-smoking, a group of friends, including Keith Pearson, like to make their way to a private spot in the woods to get high. They find strange items, like a campsite of sorts. Keith is enamored by a girl in his biology class, Chris. But Chris has a crush on Rob Facincanni. At a party, Rob protests but Chris seduces him, only afterward discovering why he protested. Rob is one of "them", the 'diseased'. While Rob and Chris come to an understanding, Keith meets an affected girl names Eliza. Rob helps Christ to escape to the `encampment', a place where the 'diseased' live in peace, in their makeshift camps. Keith tries to save Chris from the camps, but still feels Eliza pulling him to her. But really, can anyone be saved from this monstrous evil? Is hiding the best way, or would running away be better? How many of the diseased within the camp are also diseased in the mind? What will happen to Keith, Chris, Rob, and Eliza? Certainly, you will find it to be more than your average teen must deal with. 'Black Hole' is heavy gauge graphic-novel-horror at the best its ever going to get. Subtle in places, horrific in others. The setting of the 70's really touched me also, concert tickets to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, David Bowie's "new" album 'Diamond Dogs', the parties, the smoking, the haircuts. Its all realistic and stupendously great. 'Black Hole' makes my teen years in the Seattle area not look so bad after all. The only thing I could find wrong with 'Black Hole' is that there wasn't enough of it. I want more. More disfigurement, more violence, more squinginess. If you read only one book in 2006, make sure it's 'Black Hole'. A MUST for any aficionado of the horror genre, and the graphic novel nuts. Definitely worth the price. Enjoy!

Easily one of the year's best.

Charles Burns, Black Hole (Pantheon, 2005) Really, the only thing I should need to say about Charles Burns' superlative Black Hole is "wow." And I'm not terribly sure I can say anything more; many professional reviewers have tried, and as good as the reviews have uniformly been, all of them have failed to capture what it is that makes Black Hole one of the best books, graphic or no, of the past half-decade (or more). When faced with such glorious failure, why not give it a shot? Set in suburban Seattle in the mid-seventies, Black Hole centers on two high-school students, Keith and Chris, who know nothing about one another other than the they share a biology class. Keith, like most of the rest of his class, has a major crush on Chris; Chris thinks Keith is a really nice guy. The chapters alternate between the exploits (and points-of-view) of the two. Surrounding the tale of these two would-be lovers is the Bug, a sexually-transmitted disease (while one couldn't call it akin to pregnancy, given its 100% infection rate, Burns does have a few amusing moments where his characters liken it to same). People infected with the Bug are outcasts who live in a wooded area above Ravenna Park that Keith and his stoner pals call Planet Xeno (for no particular reason they can name). There are also weird goings-on in the woods (that will likely put you in mind of The Blair Witch Project). And then people infected with the Bug start to disappear... Black Hole is pitch-perfect in tone, pacing, and characterization. There's just a touch of nostalgia, though Burns never allows himself to fall into the trap of romanticizing the mid-seventies. The mystery angle is handled strangely but effectively; the world outside doesn't know about it, and the infected themselves almost seem to accept it as one more way in which they're outcasts. No one's really interested in solving it; it's just there. It's an unexpected way of handling things, and risky. But as everything else in this book, Burns handles it with brilliance. If there is a weakness to the book, it comes in the final fifty pages. One of the storylines (telling you which would probably be considered a spoiler) has a weak ending. Burns, however, makes up for it with the ending to the other storyline, which is handled with even more eloquence and power than the rest of the story. I can't say enough about the art, either. Burns cut his teeth in early issues of RAW Magazine, and it shows; his work (this was, according to interviews and other reviews, a conscious decision on Burns' part) never changed during the decade it took him to write this book. From the looks of things, if you compare his work in RAW (what I remember of it, anyway; it's been a while) to the work in Black Hole), it's still strikingly similar. Because it's what I've been reading, I have an urge to compare the art in Black Hole to that of, say, Sandman; the problem is that the Sandman artists and Burns are miles and worlds away from one another a